Photographyhacks.org RIP

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I have decided to let my website photographyhacks.org die a natural death after June 2009. It is too much expense to maintain a non-income generating website and too time consuming to play with HTML code every time something is changed or added. 

In order to maintain the information I have on the website, I made a page entitled photographyhacks.org and I placed  the information from the website there. The images in general aren’t worth the effort to move. So, now is the time to look at the pictures if you wish. The images from the tutorials are still there.

 
UPDATE 12-10-2008: I found a quick way to zip all the images from photographyhacks.org. I will put them in a gallery on their own page. They will include, in no particular order or filename convention, cross-eye stereo, images that originally were embedded in the projects, and normal (for me) snapshots.

It was a good weekend ….

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Friday night was warm for the Halloweeners. Saturday and Sunday I spent quite a few hours at a model train show with the club of which I am a member. I wish my legs and back were about fifteen years younger, I had to call both days off early and go home to lay down. Concrete floors do that to us old people. I took a few record shots with my Canon P&S, nothing interesting for here, just some possibly to use on our club website.

The parts and pieces are in place to start two different projects. A small model railroad layout for my home, something I have never had; and the stereo twinning of the Olympus XA2 35mm cameras that I mentioned a while back. 

The results aren’t complete yet on the digital Kodak twins, the software doesn’t seem to be able to latch on to the fuzzy detail from the pinhole lenses. I will have to try doing just stereo pairs rather than the anaglyph images I was hoping for.

The pamphlet for the 2009 one day NYC bus trips came last week and I purchased a ticket for the second week of May. Something to look forward to. Along those lines, my Wife and I will be taking our first trip to Cancun, Mexico in February.

Catching Up

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NOTE POSTED 04-17-2009 – I have been trying to get a handle on the cross slit project since this was originally posted here. At this moment, and I don’t see my mind being changed, I am abandoning any further work or time. I believe that simply put, since there are two distinctly different focal lengths there will always be one plane that is stretched out of proportion. I am planning to continue into the world of old manual focus M42 lenses and even older lenses from folders on my Canon XTi. Of course, there will still be occasional side trips into pinhole land.

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I did receive the SD card I needed in order to test my digital stereo rig. As soon as there is a decent day I will be trying it out, along with some more shots with the homemade wood stereo camera and, of course, the newest toy – that double slit camera cap. The main problem for the rest of the year is the weather. With an annual snowfall of over 110″ per year combined with one of the lowest percentages of available sun received, the subject matter until Spring is mainly bare trees and snow. In fact, guess what was in the air just a half hour ago ? 

 

Stereo Depth of Field Table

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I ran across this table today – related to be from the 50’s with no other reference given. By picking the nearest and farthest points you can figure out the best distance between the stereo lenses. By putting in the distance between the lenses, you can get the depth of field for your camera. I make no promise as to the usefulness or accuracy of this information. I am simply passing it along as a matter of possible interest.

The distance of		The STEREO BASE in MILIMETERS
the nearest object		15	30	65	125	250	500	1000
in METERS		Here are the maximum distances of the FARTHEST object in METERS
0.1		0.12	0.11
0.2		0.27	0.23	0.21
0.3		0.51	0.38	0.33	0.31
0.4		0.88	0.55	0.45	0.43	0.41
0.5		1.56	0.76	0.59	0.54	0.52	0.51
0.6		3.2	1	0.74	0.66	0.63	0.62	0.61
0.7		14	1.33	0.9	0.79	0.74	0.72	0.71
0.8		infinite	1.75	1.07	0.9	0.85	0.83	0.81
0.9			2.3	1.26	1.05	0.97	0.94	0.92
1			3.1	1.45	1.2	1.1	1.04	1.02
1.2			6.7	1.92	1.48	1.32	1.26	1.23
1.4			29	2.5	1.8	1.51	1.48	1.44
1.6			infinite	3.2	2.15	1.83	1.71	1.65
1.8				4.1	2.52	2.1	1.94	1.86
2				5.4	3	2.4	2.2	2.1
2.5				12	4.2	3.1	2.8	2.6
3				52	5.8	4.4	3.4	3.2
3.5				infinite	8	5	4	3.8
4					11	6	4.8	4.4
5					27	8.5	6	5.6
6					250	12	8	6.8
7					infinite	16	10	8
8						23	12	9.5
9						54	19	13
10						infinite	25	17
12.5							38	22
15							108	34
20							infinite	51
25								77
30								216
40								infinite
50

Pinhole Stereo Camera Information

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Here are some quick pictures of my homemade stereo pinhole camera.

The lens covers and the film index hole cover are super strength magnets; fender washers are glued to the wood body. I put some self stick camera light seal material on the backside of the magnets. This was part of a general camera light seal fix kit from an online auction site.

The level is from one of those dollar store assortments. I broke the holder off and glued it in a routed slot on the top. This is a very important item. Stereo images that are not level are very hard for your eyes and software to rectify.

The inside shows how I set the two images five inches apart (all measurements here are approximate). There are five compartments, The two end ones are for the film rolls; the middle one is for the staggered image; the other two are the pinhole compartments.

The white tape is some teflon tape I had around and used in an attempt to reduce friction on the film, The first roll shows some scratching of the negatives in every frame, so I have to rethink this.

The pressure plate is simply a piece of wood mounted on the back with foam weatherproofing tape. Foam tape was  also used  between the back and front as a light seal; a note here- I didn’t wait quite long enough for the paint on the wood to cure; and the tape was ruined in a couple of spots when I opened it up, after two weeks stored closed, for these pictures. I’d say wait a week or so or just store it unassembled.

So, I have two things to remedy – the tape scratches and replacing the damaged light seals. I am happy that there are not more problems.

As for the spacing of images on the film. As the roll is advanced through its length the stereo pairs are like this 1R.2R.1L.2L.3R.4R.3L.4L.5R.6R.5L.6L as they roll on the take-up roll. Six pairs per 120 film. Looking at the film back through the back hole the number sequence is 2.3.6.7.10.11 as the pictures are exposed.

There is a fold up/down viewfinder from an unknown folding camera to get a general idea of the framing.

There are three screw adjusters on the bottom of the camera. Since this is not exactly tripod friendly due to its width, I figured car tops, fences, chairs, benches, rocks, tree trunks, etc will be the normal resting place. These give me a way to level the camera. I do have a super reinforced tripod mount on the bottom, but unless it is a still day or indoors I’ll use a support as mentioned above.

Using hardware store parts I made spring loaded roller guides and roll winders. Whatever works for your plan – after all this is part of the fun – being conceptual artist, designer, engineer, fabricator, assembler, trouble shooter,  and user. When the first roll comes back it reflects what you have done.

As with all my projects/hints – please read the Notice at the bottom of the right hand column .

Dollar Store Pinhole Cameras – An Update

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Last night I spent three+ hours destroying one of these quality cameras trying for a simple way to make the shutter stay open when the release was held down. Nothing doing. Then another two hours trying to add a second push/pull shutter release. Too contrived and not what I was looking for. I covered the parts with a towel and left them there, in the dark, with no food or water, to come to their senses and tell me what to do.

After looking at a Blog on WordPress an hour ago, that I found using the Tag Search with pinhole as the search word, I had my answer. I was being much to mechanically minded on the project. I decided to just take the shutter mechanism out, leave the shutter release to serve the function of a film advance regulator and use …. drumroll ……… rimshot ………. duck/duct tape or black electrical tape !

http://johnsomerville.wordpress.com/

Above is the Blog where I found my inspiration. Thank you John ! My Bloglist widget has a link to his Blog.

I have made an early New Year’s Resolution – to take at least one picture a day with both my DSLR and a pinhole camera. I have been spending too much time at the keyboard and workshop. Winter is coming and the Fall colors are passing me by.

Just now I found a small blurb regarding the difference in developing 220 vs 120 film. The physical difference is there is no paper backing on 220 film, making it very sensitive to light. This comes into play when you load/unload the film. Also, if you have a camera that has a red viewing circle, there are no numbers and the light coming in through the circle can fog the film. This is probably old news to MF film users, but was news to me. I was planning on using a roll of 220 color in my homemade stereo pinhole camera to double the number of stereo pairs, this info saved me the price of a ruined roll of film.

This and That

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The rain continues, despite the TV weather predictions of it stopping soon. 

I was helping a friend drop off some accumulated stuff at the town landfill this morning when I had one of those short lived moments of lucidity that seniors have. He pulled into the dollar store at my request and I ran inside to see if they had any of those $1.00 plastic 35mm cameras left. Yup, must be fifty or so hanging there. I grabbed eight of them and a couple of dog snacks. Hey, with ranch dressing they aren’t half-bad. 

Maybe it was the recent posts here and on my website regarding duplicate pinholes that spurred a sleeping neuron or two to life. Short version of a long story – there are eight duplicate pinholes sitting on my workbench with the paint on them drying. 

Later I will see if it is going to be possible to make the shutter stay open when the release is held down. If not, I’ll have to cobble up another method. What to do with them ? Two thoughts – the photography group I am in doesn’t seem to share my interest in pinhole photography, so I could bring them to our next meeting all loaded with film and use them as pass-outs. That might get some interest going.  The other is to sell them on an online auction site. Hmmmm… perhaps both, I’ll have to see what develops. Darn, I promised myself I wouldn’t use that phrase again.

The trip to NYC is coming in a week. I’m still indecisive as to where to wander and what equipment to take. I know the DSLR is going with the 28mm prime. The pinhole question looms – dare I haul along the stereo pinhole or should I take one of these new plastic jobbies, or stick with my favorite wooden pinhole with the Graflex roll film back ?  So many places, including the sidewalks are persona non grata to tripods in NYC making the pinhole good only in parks. The police are supposed to allow amateurs a certain time period for tripod use on sidewalks, providing you are not obstructing pedestrian flow. I prefer to not get into a timing or perception issue with the NYPD. Decisions, decisions ………..

Update – I’ve decided to take my monopod and the wood camera. Of course, that might change

Digital Stereo Pinhole Project Finished

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The mechanical part of the project is finished. I just have to wait for an SD card to arrive and get the batteries re-charged. The weather is calling for rain for the next four days, so it appears that somewhere around October 1 I will get a chance to try the rig. The yellow object behind the cameras is a tape measure holding the rig up for the pics.

A construction story and related pictures for this stereo digital pinhole camera are posted on my website > http://photographyhacks.org <, a clickable link is in the Blotlist to the right >>>>>>>>>>>>

Also there is a short ‘how to’ on making pinholes. To make a pinhole cap for any camera with removable lenses, simply make a hole approximately 3/8″ in diameter in the dead center of a body cap. Then glue the pinhole to the inside of the cap, centering the pinhole, and paint as much of the metal flat black as possible without filling in the pinhole, this to cut down on reflections. Do not worry about the exact size of the pinhole for your first attempt. Just do it and enjoy the results.

Update 10-03-2008: I just put a stereo camera DOF – Depth Of Field – table from the 1950’s in a posting today.

Update March 2009: Like everything that seems simple, this project has come back to bite me. I was in such a hurry to get finished, that I never turned on the cameras to sight the placement of the pinholes relative to the sensor. In other words, it turned out cross-eyed, Now I will have to pop off the pinhole assembly and re-attach them more carefully. Oh well.

It is wonderful to be retired ..

 
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 .. and have the opportunity to just stop what you were doing and strike off on a different path without asking permission.

 This morning I was digging around in the rear of a drawer full of parts for projects that were never completed/started/remembered, looking for a 58mm lens cap. I found two K*odak E*asyshare C340 5MP digital cameras. Both had the same problem (I got them at an auction website as for repair only), the little shutter over the lens did not open when the lens assembly extended during power up. I had thought to glue them open and use them as cheap point and shoot backups. One showed my failed attempt, the shutter was glued open OK, but the lens had a blob of the glue dead center. 

Since I had thought quite a bit during the wood stereo pinhole project about those two Olympus XA2 35mm cameras and their future conversion to a coupled stereo film pair setup; the jump to a pinhole digital stereo pair setup was very easy. The lens cap search was put on the back burner and an immediate trip to the workshop followed.

The matched pinholes are constructed and the flat black paint is now drying in the workshop. I will post a construction how-to on my website  >> http://photopgraphyhacks.org  << when it is complete and images will be placed here.  There is a clickable link in the BlogSpots widget to the right >>>>>>>>>>

Update: I just posted a small article on my website regarding making matching pinholes for either a stereo pinhole camera or matched pinhole cameras.

Pinhole Day 2009

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According to the Pinhole Day website > www.pinholeday.org < each year Pinhole Day is on the last Sunday in April which will make it April 26, 2009.

Time to start planning ahead ! 

Quick synopsis of Pinhole Day – the day that all participants take image(s) and upload to the website. All uploads will then be put in a gallery. The Pinhole Day galleries for past years (2001-2008) are available for perusal. It is amazing to see the images from all over the world, taken with all sorts of cameras, all within the same 24 hour period.

Take time to look at the galleries for the past years. I make a bookmark of the last image I have looked at and then start in the same place when I again have the time.

I will put a clickable link within the Web list Widget to the right.

As soon as I get a few images sorted out, I will make some pages up to hold them, after all, I am trying to have a PhotoBlog here. LOL

Edit/Update at 9:30PM – I added a page with some of the images from the stereo pinhole camera.